Meet the Man Who Wants to Teach the World to Make Maps

Photo: Anthony Robinson

The world’s first digital-mapping MOOC (massive open online course) kicks off tomorrow, and I’m really looking forward to it. Apparently I’m not alone. About 30,000 people from all over the world have enrolled so far. The course, called Maps and the Geospatial Revolution, will be taught by Anthony Robinson, a geographer at Penn State. Last weekend, I gave him a call to find out more about the course and the man behind it.

Wired: How did you get interested in geography?

Anthony Robinson: I started my undergraduate education as an electrical engineering major. Then I just randomly took a human geography class, and it completely woke me up. Right away I knew I wanted to be a geographer.

‘It’s an entry-level thing. It’s the gateway drug to mapping.’

Wired: Why’s that?

Robinson: I learned that there was this weird intersection of science and graphic design, and a map is not necessarily just this neutral, factual thing. It was a story device. It was something you could convince people with. Growing up, I was always the kid in the back of the car with a map, navigating on the family vacation, so I had this sort of baked-in affinity for maps. But I hadn’t realized there’s this huge science around geography, and that was pretty awesome.

Wired: What’s the focus of your academic work as a geographer?

Robinson: My research now is about how people use and interact with maps. We get tasks from various funding agencies and things like that, where they have some difficult problem and tons of data, and we have to create something for them that leverages geography. A lot of times, I get a task like how would we visualize all the names of places we get in tweets. My role is to draw up the initial interface for that, and we have developers who implement it. Then I come in again at the prototype and end stage to evaluate how those systems work with people.

One little example of something I’ve done that’s kind of cool is I’ve started working with a colleague in Australia who’s using eye-tracking software. What we can do with that is see where people actually look, and we’re testing different interactive map designs with that technology.

Wired: What was the motivation for the MOOC?

Robinson: Here at Penn State I direct our online geospatial education programs. I was able to make the argument that this is needed. There isn’t one yet, and I’m sure there’s a lot of untapped interest in this stuff. When I meet someone on a plane and tell them I’m a geographer, they’re like “What?” They don’t even realize that’s a thing. Something like a MOOC, that’s free and has a high profile, might get more people interested in what we do.

Wired: Why is it just happening now?

Robinson: One thing that really helps right now is we’re past the age of having mapping software that takes you weeks and weeks to have the basics. The software I’m using in the course, ArcGIS Online, works in a browser. It’s very usable. It’s not perfect but it’s quite good. Also, there are tons of datasets that are available now and searchable. Those are things we spent weeks and weeks on even when I was an undergrad, and that wasn’t that long ago. The technology threshold that it takes to make a map and do some spatial analysis has now ratcheted down to the point where it’s possible to do this with people all over the world working on different technology platforms. I don’t think I could teach this class even two years ago.

Wired: Who’s the intended audience?

Robinson: Novice folks who are maybe coming out of high school in some cases, or lifelong learners who are interested in maps but have never taken a class. My core motivation was to design a course for people who use maps but have never made one of their own. It’s an entry-level thing. It’s the gateway drug to mapping.

Wired: How many people have enrolled?

Robinson: Twenty nine thousand four hundred and some, as of this morning. It’s astonishing. Late last fall when I was conceiving the class I thought it would be really amazing if 1000 people learned to make a map for the first time and felt like they could do it again. That would already be the world’s largest cartography class many times over.

Wired: Are there any prerequisites?

Robinson: No. I tried to design it for someone who’ve never been in a class like this before.

Wired: What will we learn?

Robinson: At the end of this you’ll understand spatial data, you’ll know where to find some stuff, and you’ll enough to be dangerous in terms of designing a map that actually suits the data. I want people to think about how to tell a story with data and build a map they can share with their friends.